A recognition test in monkeys to differentiate recollection from familiarity memory.

Episodic memory is memory for experiences within a specific temporal and spatial context. Episodic memories decline early in Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Recollection of episodic memories can fail with both AD and aging, but familiarity and recollection memory uniquely fail in AD.

Is inferential reasoning a distinctly human cognitive feature? Testing reasoning in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Logical inference is often assumed a human-unique ability, although many species of apes and monkeys have shown some facility within a two-cup task in which one cup is baited, the primate is shown the cup which is empty (an exclusion cue), and subsequently chooses the other baited cup. In published reports, New World monkey species show a limited ability to choose successfully, often with half or more of the subjects tested not showing the ability with auditory cues or with exclusion cues. In this study, five cotton-top tamarins () were tested in a two-cup task with visual or auditory cues which revealed the presence or absence of bait, and in a second study, were tested with a four-cup array using a variety of walls to define the baiting space and a variety of visual cues including inclusion and exclusion.

A modified version of the dimensional change card sort task tests cognitive flexibility in children (Homo sapiens) and cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

A modified Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task was used to test cognitive flexibility in adult cotton-top tamarins and children aged 19 months to 60 months. Subjects had to infer a rule from the experience of selecting between two cards to earn a reward, and the pairs of stimuli defined the rule (e.g.

Artificial grammar learning in tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) in varying stimulus contexts.

The human ability to detect regularities in sound sequences is a fundamental substrate of our language faculty. However, is this an ability exclusive to human language processing, or have we usurped a more general learning mechanism for this purpose, one shared with other species? The current study is an attempt to replicate and extend Hauser, Weiss, and Marcus's (2002) retracted study (2010) of artificial grammar learning in tamarins to determine if tamarins can detect an underlying grammatical structure in a pattern of sounds. Human language consonant-vowel (CV) combinations from Hauser et al.

Gestalt principle use in college students, children with autism, toddlers (Homo sapiens), and cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

The use of Gestalt principles of proximity, similarity, and closure to recognize objects by configural superiority was examined in college students, low- and high-functioning children with autism, toddlers, and adult cotton top tamarin monkeys. At issue was whether the monkeys showed differences from humans in perceptual processing and whether they showed any similarities with clinical or developmental groups. The method required a pointing response to discriminate an odd item in a 4-item visual display.

Chasing sounds.

Prior work with Wright and others demonstrated that rhesus monkeys recognized the relative relationships of notes in common melodies. As an extension of tests of pattern similarities, tamarins were habituated to 3-sound unit patterns in an AAB or ABB form that were human phonemes, piano notes, or monkey calls. The subjects were tested with novel sounds in each category constructed either to match the prior pattern or to violate the prior habituated pattern.

Is a sense of inequity an ancestral primate trait? Testing social inequity in cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

To address a controversy in the literature concerning whether monkeys show an aversion to inequity, individuals of a New World monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) were tested in an offering task and in a bartering task. At issue was whether the monkeys rejected rewards because of a violation of expectancy of the preferred reward, or whether they rejected rewards because of a sensitivity to socially mediated inequity. The data from both tasks indicated that the subjects were more likely to reject when preferred rewards were presented, either because of another animal eating the reward (the social condition) or because of rewards being presented but inaccessible.

Global and local processing in adult humans (Homo sapiens), 5-year-old children (Homo sapiens), and adult cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

This study compared adults (Homo sapiens), young children (Homo sapiens), and adult tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) while they discriminated global and local properties of stimuli. Subjects were trained to discriminate a circle made of circle elements from a square made of square elements and were tested with circles made of squares and squares made of circles. Adult humans showed a global bias in testing that was unaffected by the density of the elements in the stimuli.

Face processing in humans and new world monkeys: the influence of experiential and ecological factors.

This study tests whether the face-processing system of humans and a nonhuman primate species share characteristics that would allow for early and quick processing of socially salient stimuli: a sensitivity toward conspecific faces, a sensitivity toward highly practiced face stimuli, and an ability to generalize changes in the face that do not suggest a new identity, such as a face differently oriented. The look rates by adult tamarins and humans toward conspecific and other primate faces were examined to determine if these characteristics are shared. A visual paired comparison (VPC) task presented subjects with either a human face, chimpanzee face, tamarin face, or an object as a sample, and then a pair containing the previous stimulus and a novel stimulus was presented.

A test of the generality of perceptually based categories found in infants: attentional differences toward natural kinds by New World monkeys.

A preference to novelty paradigm used to study human infants (Quinn, 2002) examined attention to novel animal pictures at subordinate, basic and superordinate levels in tamarins. First, pairs of pictures were presented in phases, starting with a monkey species (subordinate level) and ending with mammal and dinosaur sets (superordinate levels). After each phase, tests paired novel pictures from the familiarized set with a novel broader category.

A test of object permanence in a new-world monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Cotton top tamarins were tested in visible and invisible displacement tasks in a method similar to that used elsewhere to test squirrel monkeys and orangutans. All subjects performed at levels significantly above chance on visible ( n=8) and invisible ( n=7) displacements, wherein the tasks included tests of the perseverance error, tests of memory in double and triple displacements, and "catch" trials that tested for the use of the experimenter's hand as a cue for the correct cup. Performance on all nine tasks was significantly higher than chance level selection of cups, and tasks using visible displacements generated more accurate performance than tasks using invisible displacements.

Use of experimenter-given cues in visual co-orienting and in an object-choice task by a new world monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Two methods assessed the use of experimenter-given directional cues by a New World monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Experiment 1 used cues to elicit visual co-orienting toward distal objects. Experiment 2 used cues to generate responses in an object-choice task.